Under the Red Dragon

The sky was heavy with dark clouds, and a continuous drizzle fell. Looking down from above, the city on the ground was lit with scattered moonlight, hazy and dreamlike.

In the skies above the Royal Capital, no creature could fly over the city, except for the dragons who were its rulers, and the ascending mage towers that formed the empire's steel dome.

These mage towers, patrolling the aerial orbits calculated and designated by the Ministry of Magic Integration, were always hidden in the shadows of magic, 3,500 meters above the ground. Even a legendary mage would have difficulty discovering these aerial weapons without deliberately trying to.

Moreover, these aerial weapons used magic to blend the clouds and colors of the sky into their camouflage, making them difficult to spot even when exposed to mortal eyes.

Above every city in the empire, there was always a mage tower incorporating the city into its aerial orbit, patrolling and monitoring the situation of each city.

Above the Royal Capital of the Golden Empire, there was also a patrolling mage tower hidden in the layers of dark clouds.

The occasional lightning strikes caused by the rainy weather were also drawn and absorbed by the energy collector on top of the tower, which blended in with the sky, as reserve energy for the mage tower's operation.

The entire tower was painted with magical dyes developed after breakthroughs in magical materials science, making it appear to constantly change between shades of black-gray and light blue.

The monitoring area inside the mage tower was much larger than it appeared from the outside.

Energy links of various intertwined colors ran along the inner walls and underground of the tower's space in different directions. At the center of this monitoring area was a series of shimmering magical projection screens.

These magical projection screens displayed energy indicators in the form of different colored columns, which were tools for monitoring abnormal energy fluctuations in the Royal Capital.

Several low-level nature casters promoted from Green Elves sat in front of the magical projection screens, watching streams of information fluctuate across the control reaction projections, where relevant information was summarized and screened by the elves, who reviewed each item one by one.

"Huh?"

One of the elves made a sound of surprise. The staff of the Ministry of Defense's Sky Watch Department were specially trained professionals who could easily detect any anomalies in the information feedback.

"According to the monitoring display, there are higher than normal energy fluctuations near the Layton Street area," the elf stared at the fluctuations on the projection screen and then asked, "Did some powerful figure take action there today?"

Layton Street was one of the thirty-six main roads that ran through the entire Royal Capital. This street was lined with shops and taverns and was one of the most crowded areas.

Moreover, the Layton Merchant Guild from the Western Continent had donated a large sum of money to the empire's city institutions, obtaining the naming rights to this most prosperous street.

Most importantly, Layton Street was adjacent to the Royal Capital's central Glory Coliseum, which was why the elf asked such a question.

"How could there be such a powerful figure? You know that the entire coliseum is shrouded in a fixed, independent magic barrier,"

Another elf said with a smile, "It may be that the empire's great dragons have come to the coliseum, which caused the energy fluctuations there to appear abnormal."

"No, no," the previous elf frowned and said, "The energy reaction there is becoming more and more intense. The fluctuations of magic and elements have exceeded the level three normal alert line and are rapidly breaking through towards the level two alert line,"

"This growth trend is increasing at an exponential rate, which is very abnormal,"

"Immediately, right now, contact the Royal Capital's Security Office and have them send people to investigate!" the elf shouted anxiously.

"Have them contact the City Defense Commander and act according to the situation. If necessary, they need to directly activate the city's defense barrier!"

Inside the underground passage of the Royal Capital, Archmage Lor stood on a huge six-pointed star magic array. The 1,250 magic rune veins drawn under his feet had been connected, and the magic rune nodes were being lit up one by one.

In the huge six-pointed star magic array, an altar inlaid with magic gems and crystals was the center of the magic array. On the altar was a sealed box, which Archmage Lor was slowly opening.

The companions watching around also looked at the box. Lor took a deep breath, gazing at a huge heart inside the box. A vast aura of vitality and the pressure of a high-level life form emanated from this huge heart sealed in amber.

The Heart of Nagammat, once a follower of the immortal Dragon Queen Tiamat, a heart dug out when an incredibly powerful dragon died.

Even after countless ages, Lor could still feel the instinctive fear he felt when facing this heart.

The evil dragon's true blood on the coronary vessels of the dragon's heart seemed to still have complete life vitality, as if it had just been squeezed out of the heart in the last second, crystal clear.

But it exuded an aura and majesty more terrifying than any ferocious monster in the material world.

Lor slowly exhaled, placing his hand on this nearly time-condensed heart, slowly chanting ancient magical words.

Vast magic and elements were drawn from Lor's body, unsealing the magic seal on the dragon heart before him.

Whether it was a hallucination caused by excessive tension, Lor felt his replicated advanced divination spell automatically activate at this moment.

Everything around him twisted into phantoms in his mind. He saw his body also twisted, also blown by the sudden gust of wind, and then his body was like a light, fluttering human skin, scattered in the wind.

Thump.

The huge sound was like a heavy drum being struck. The huge dragon heart slowly beat out the first sound, shaking Archmage Lor's heart and the hearts of everyone around him.

Lor woke up from the illusion of the divination spell but could not suppress a feeling of panic in his heart.

Every strong person has their own intuition, especially advanced casters who specialize in mental power, who can sense future dangers to a certain extent.

And Lor's replicated advanced divination spell had such a specialized effect.

He just wanted to open his mouth to warn his companions to be vigilant, but he found that he could not make any sound.

A twisted and terrified expression appeared on the archmage's face. He found that not only his voice but even all the magic and mental power in his body, and even his life force, were being unreservedly drawn by the heart before him.

As an archmage, he had already thoroughly studied the magic array he had set up. This was just an advanced magic array with the effect of condensing, spreading, and amplifying, and it did not have the effect of drawing his power and life force.

"But in the end, I still made a mistake," the mage Lor thought. He felt that his life had reached the final edge, like a candle in the face of a storm, about to be extinguished in the next second.

Lor turned his head to look at his companions, and saw the tension, worry, and fear on their faces, so he opened his mouth with difficulty, "Escape..."

"Lor, what happened...?" Jessee asked loudly.

Thump.

The second heartbeat sounded, and all of Mage Lor's sounds and movements solidified, turning into a light, fluttering human skin, slowly sliding down.

Whoosh.

A gale, suddenly rose.

Boundless magic and elements began to boil and converge. The magic elements in the 1,250 magic rune veins flowed quickly, faster and faster, and the brilliance of magic bloomed like dazzling sunlight.

The expressions on all the dragon hunters' faces suddenly solidified, and their shouts were even stuck in their throats.

"Get out!" White-armored knight Gauer was injured internally by the huge vibration resonance, a trace of blood spilled from his mouth and nose, and he shouted in alarm and anger.

These legendary dragon hunters no longer had time to mourn their former companions, and they ran towards the direction leading to the outside of the Royal Capital.

Prowler Tor couldn't help but look back, and the huge dragon heart began to be slowly lifted by the power of the huge magic array, rising into the air.

The dark blood-colored brilliance rose higher and higher accompanied by mysterious and ancient dragon language sounds, gradually dyeing the entire space red, spreading towards the passages in all directions.

An ancient and insurmountable majesty began to bloom.

In the void, it seemed that a pair of eyes opened in the dark, and a deep and vast power began to roar like a storm.

Woo...

The magical horn sounded in the Royal Capital, sounding vast and empty, desolate and distant.

Teams of security guards marched in neat rhythm, striding from the drizzling streets.

"All residents in the Layton Street area, disperse in an orderly manner to other areas, immediately," kobold guards ran through the streets, telling all the residents living in this area to evacuate.

Some enthusiastic residents still wanted to step forward to ask these guards if they needed their help, but they were forced back by the cold, hard expressions of these guards.

And around the Layton Street area, it had already been surrounded by hundreds of thousands of security guards, directing the evacuation of the residents here, and setting up a solid defensive blockade formation.

A team of Tribunal Knights clad in black armor coldly surrounded the increasingly boiling energy area of Layton Street, like a condensed storm, vaguely exuding a deep majesty, coming from this area, becoming more and more obvious.

From the initial subtle fluctuations, even these Tribunal Knights could now clearly perceive it.

Centaur Suniya's face changed, "Why haven't those City Defense Department guys activated the magic element suppressing restriction barrier?"

Although Suniya knew that her request was a bit harsh, as the department managing the entire city, it was impossible to directly activate the city-wide magic suppression barrier based on a simple warning. It still needed to go through on-site inspections to confirm the energy level of the potential danger.

Unless a dragon lord directly ordered it, could this seemingly unnecessary procedure be bypassed, and the city's super magic barrier be activated.

"Go, tell those City Defense Department guys, have those guys activate the city-wide public address system. This matter may be more serious than imagined!"

Suniya's face was grave, and she issued an order exceeding her authority to the captain of the security team.

But the captain of the security team did not dare to neglect it, and hurried to the nearest City Defense Department, a huge city, divided into sixteen huge areas, each area has a security office of the City Defense Department, able to contact the headquarters,

"Lord Suniya, this violent energy fluctuation is not in any of the residential buildings, it should be in the underground of the city,"

One by one, dragon soldiers ran out of the cleared residential buildings and reported to Suniya.

"Quickly find the shaft leading to the underground passage on Layton Street. You few clever guys, go quickly and see what's going on,"

Suniya sent out her most capable assistants. The energy fluctuations coming from the ground had already begun to make her feel extremely thrilling.

But before the three black-armored knights could open the lid of the shaft, a deep, ancient, and irresistible majesty slowly rose into the air, as if a dragon, unimaginable in the mortal world, appeared in this world.

A rich blood-colored light penetrated through the ground, and a huge heart, surrounded by a thin layer of blood-colored luster, easily passed through the solid and thick ground as if it had no substance, slowly rising into the air in front of these soldiers.

In front of this huge heart, Suniya even felt that the Black Dragon King Rosani, whom she faced daily, was so small.

Suniya even felt that in front of that vast, twisted, and chaotic majesty, even the empire's emperor, the ancestral Red Dragon Calon Gorgomora, could not compare to it.

"This is the will of an ancient dragon, or the heart of a primordial dragon, or..."

Suniya's body, wrapped in black armor, couldn't help but tremble. The instinctive majesty made her feel incomparable fear, and what made her even more afraid was what consequences this mysterious dragon heart would bring.

"Quickly notify Lord Dos, only dragons can handle this matter,"

Suniya screamed, she watched some of the weaker monster soldiers around her had already been frightened by the majesty exuded by this terrifying fluctuation.

Fortunately, many of the centaurs among the Tribunal Knights had experienced the former war, and their minds were firm and stable, and they were not frightened by such majesty, and hurried away at a gallop.

Thump.

When the slowly rising dragon heart miraculously pumped for the third time, Suniya felt her heart also vibrate fiercely.

Bang.

Suniya slowly turned around, and the door of a small tavern in the distance was completely shattered by a powerful force. Screams of different tones from various races such as humans and elves came from the small tavern.

The head of a white dragon stretched out from the tavern door and looked towards Suniya.

A chill, like a frozen ice flow in a million-year glacier, pierced Suniya's tail vertebrae, instantly spreading along her spine, rushing straight to the back of her skull.

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Because the cold, faint pupils of this white dragon had already been covered by a chaotic blood color.

In these pupils, the past spirituality and rational wisdom had begun to disappear, leaving only wildness and bestiality like beasts, and a naked chaos and killing intent.

"Roar," the white dragon raised its head and roared to the sky.

"Quickly notify the whole city, all residents take shelter inside residential buildings, no notification, no going out!" Suniya kicked away a kobold soldier who was still in a daze, and shouted loudly.

One by one, black-armored knights of the Inquisition gathered behind Soniya, forming a line.

Clang.

Soniya drew her longsword, and the knights of the Inquisition mirrored her action in unison, the sound of their blades leaving their sheaths echoing as one.

"Follow me," Soniya said, glancing left and right before her hooves began to drum as she broke into a slow run.

The oppressive aura of the Empire surged from the Inquisitor Knight Commander, binding the will of all the black-armored knights into an unbreakable force.

The black-armored knights were silent, the dragon might radiating from the bestial white dragon failing to affect them in the slightest. Swords raised, their cold light merging into a single point, they initiated a charge.

The city guard, encircling the area, began to close in, intent on eliminating the bestial white dragon completely.

But roars of dragons began to erupt, echoing and spreading across the area.

Boom.

Two more taverns and shops had their doors smashed open by dragons, now driven to madness, their grotesque heads and bestial eyes particularly horrifying.

But the city guard soldiers were no longer afraid, and under the command of their captain, they raised the short crossbows at their waists, aiming at the two frenzied dragons, loosing a rain of arrows.

"You're done for," Steel Dragon Midir declared, playing a key card to defeat her opponent, the lively girl's eyes crinkling as she clapped her hands.

The dwarf across from her looked dejected, reluctantly watching his core rare card being taken by the quirky girl.

But a tremor, originating from the deepest part of her bloodline, stopped Steel Dragon Midir in her tracks.

Steel Dragon Midir felt her nerves prickle, her consciousness heating up as if hot oil had been poured onto her dragon soul.

The dragon blood within her seemed to ignite under the stimulation, burning her consciousness into a daze, preventing her from thinking clearly.

Negative emotions and powerful bloodlust, irremovable from the depths of her dragon blood, were forcibly awakened by this invisible tremor.

The surging bloodlust urged the steel dragon to transform into her true dragon form, slaughtering all living beings before her, trampling their blood, and destroying all obstacles in her path.

"Damn it, this is…" Steel Dragon Midir's humanoid girl form seemed about to be shattered by an external force, she cried out in alarm, "Everyone, evacuate this card hall immediately!"

She wasn't worried about herself. Having undergone the secret training of the High Gomorrah dragon group's core members—the Dragon's Proof—allowed the steel dragon to have strong resistance to such forces.

The Gomorrah dragon group's Dragon's Proof itself was built on resisting the dragon's instinct and the bloodlust inherent in the dragon's blood.

This was tantamount to constantly fighting against one's own nature, a painful process of almost reshaping one's self-awareness, and it brought unprecedented self-restraint to the dragons of the High Gomorrah dragon group.

Steel Dragon Midir was worried about the other dragons in this dragon card hall, because there were nearly six or seven dragons in this largest card hall.

Perhaps other dragons didn't know, but as a steel dragon seeking knowledge and passing it on, Midir knew very well what was causing her to almost instantly lose control.

It was an ancient dragon curse that was already difficult to find in the material world—the Dragon Frenzy Mystlock.

This curse, even more ancient and rare than legendary spells, was rumored to be related to the High Elves of the Second Age.

But Steel Dragon Midir knew that this curse, targeting the most fundamental blood of dragons, vaguely had a final mastermind behind it—the immortal Dragon Queen Tiamat and the Platinum Dragon King Bahamut.

The world could not distinguish the truth behind it, and even the oldest dragons could not explore its secrets, or rather, no dragon dared to explore its secrets.

But Steel Dragon Midir knew that under the influence of this powerful curse, dragons would not only become violent and mad like mindless beasts, slaughtering and destroying all living beings and objects before them.

If they could not escape the influence of the curse and were affected by this blood curse for a long time, dragons might even truly degenerate into simple beasts without intelligence.

Midir controlled the chaotic and terrifying thoughts in her mind, an uncontrollable anger burning in her heart, "Could it be that the true independent civilization of dragons should never exist in this world? This is not what His Majesty, the Nine-Faced Dragon God, wants to see!"

Veins bulged on the girl's forehead as she stood up, looking at the chaotic scene before her.

No one questioned Steel Dragon Midir's words, and most people were scrambling to escape the card hall. Some panicked pixie sprites flapped their wings and flew out of the windows, cries and weeping spreading.

"Roar," violent dragon roars rang out one after another.

Heads of dragons of various scale colors, radiating a cold, bloodthirsty aura, expanded from their humanoid forms, coldly gazing at those tiny, weak creatures before them.

Several unlucky ordinary humans and goblins were even directly crushed and trampled to death by the sudden expansion of these dragons' enormous bodies, turning into a bloody pulp.

Even the amethyst dragon Loya, a gem dragon, was affected by the power of the curse, transforming into her true dragon form, gnashing her teeth and shaking her huge head, suppressing the increasingly strong desire for destruction and blood.

Steel Dragon Midir's pupils slowly turned, and the power of her talent—the Chain of Life—manifested, a girl's form appearing behind her.

The Chain of Life, this special talent of the steel dragon species, comes from the commonality of the steel dragons.

In the steel dragons' long lives, they will walk the earth as men, women, nobles, beggars, humans, elves, orcs, and all kinds of humanoid intelligent races.

But these steel dragons do not regard the identities they have played as disguises and masks, but as real lives, as friends of the steel dragon.

And the Chain of Life is the collection of the lives of the characters played by the dragon, which can exert some wonderful abilities in the hands of these dragons.

And Steel Dragon Midir's life is still too young, with only one girl's form, serving as her simulacrum spellcasting and humanoid form.

Steel Dragon Midir's true form and the girl's simulacrum simultaneously looked at the dragons that were transforming, ancient and brief dragon words sounded, which was the magic created by the steel dragons borrowing from the ancient red dragons, explained in the common language of the continent, it is—Ephemeral Bloom!

Ephemeral Bloom is a water bubble floating, the beautiful color of the hibiscus flower, a metaphor for a short and tempting illusion.

This is the steel dragon version of the ancient red dragon Calon Gomorrah's spell--Fleeting Dream.

In the simulacrum form of the girl, an invisible wave accompanied the pupil light of the giant dragon Midir, sweeping across several giant dragons, causing them to instantly fall into a brief confusion.

Steel Dragon Midir leisurely looked at the tavern, where there were still several brave warriors holding weapons, confronting these giant dragons who had gradually become crazy beasts, and did not escape from this giant dragon card hall like others.

"You are really brave guys, why don't you run away, your strength can't stop these guys who are going crazy," Steel Dragon Midir transformed into her true dragon form, the thin steel dragon looked particularly weak in front of several juvenile dragons, but her aura was extremely high-spirited.

"I am proud of this," the young Langdon proudly smiled: "Nowhere else in this world could there be a child like me, a wanderer of humble origin who once stuttered so badly that he couldn't express a complete sentence," "Finally, relying on his own efforts, he became the chief of security in this city, ranking as a centurion," the young Langdon held his sword and straightened his chest.

"Although I am on vacation, I am still the security officer of this great city, this is my duty!"

Steel Dragon Midir's anger was disappearing, she looked at the other two young warriors and asked: "What about you?"

One of the warriors showed a smile, "I have no reason, I just want to let myself know that maybe before the moment my life ends, I can tell myself that the Golden Empire, I have done my best for it."

The last warrior smiled: "Your Excellency Midir, this is my hometown!"

Steel Dragon Midir showed a smile, she slowly opened her mouth and said: "Be careful, my illusion can't control these dragons for long, the next is the real battle!"

Thank you for the votes, um, the recommendation is here again, rush, rush, rush tomorrow!